You’re Orange!

In the Duran Duran video, the president of the Western Human Federation sings out: “Stop thinking and start dreaming!- And everybody out there, here’s a new dream!” In the background, two young males with extremely geometric haircuts walk across a field of solar panels at sunrise. Exploiting Simon Lebon’s semi-castrato voice, the vapid lyrics of “This must be Sunrise for Humania!” imply that humanity is fed up with living under the tyranny of another species.

In real life, manipulative and repetitive texts like the lyrics of this fluffy pop song are a huge success for the corporations that sponsor them. They help ensure that nothing is done to deal with the side effects of all the environmental destruction their profit-seeking model leaves in its wake.

As Rusty watches the video and thinks about the subtext, he finds it harder and harder to concentrate on his schoolwork. All he can think about is the ice melting below his feet which he describes as totally and intense. Oh, and he often feels angry about what a bunch of opportunistic posers Duran Duran are.

Now Simon is crooning the refrain:

**This must be sunrise for Humania!**

Orca has just gotten out of a Post-Human Studies class and feels like she’s going to explode if she doesn’t share the lecture with someone.

Orca chews sugar-free gum and rolls her eyes like Michel Foucault: “Enlightenment luminaries thought liberal democracy was going to be all Lebanese food and togas. But it totally turned into zombies and oil slicks instead.” She holds in her toke.

Rusty, seduced by her worldly eye-roll, exhales and then slowly asks: “Orc, since tonight’s Thursday, you wanna go downtown to the Glace? The drinks are like, totally half-price.”

Orca: “The club is G – L – A – C – E, right? It’s pronounced like glass and it means ice in French, Rusty?” Her frown suggests that Rusty’s like totallies are cramping her after-school academia.

..

..

“Do you wanna go dancing or not?”

Dancing and following trends is Rusty’s way of legitimizing his existence here since he’s doing so badly at Snobordia University. He rarely attends lectures and seems oblivious to the fact that he’s not building the strategic social capital he will need to thrive in the corporate world later on. He continues to break a piece of hash into tiny spheres on Orca’s residence-issue desk.

Then Orc goes: “I’m still kind of fucked up from last weekend. I’m totally never staying up all night on acid with you guys again! I almost missed my Psychology class Monday afternoon, and it was at like two in the afternoon! I think my circadian rhythms are totaled.”

It’s the first use of totally never this week, so we laugh. Our homemade laugh track is very important to us. And every 27 minutes, we feel the need to talk about products and then go to station identification.